A tense, riveting rendering of the struggle between men and the nature they strive to protect.
A harrowing portrait of survivor’s guilt in an Italian fire brigade.
As the story opens, Matteo Arteli, a firefighter in the Italian region of Campania, is burying his entire brigade, casualties of an intense fire on Mt. Maggiore. But Matteo is not the only survivor. Nico–a mysterious American volunteer who had, in the six months since he’d arrived in Italy, become Matteo’s unlikely companion–is still alive in a Naples prison cell. Matteo’s first reaction to Nico was similar to that of the rest of his brigade–he thought him to be lazy, self-indulgent and guarded, choosing to spend his time writing in a diary rather than training or getting to know his colleagues. Matteo’s perspective changes, however, when he and Nico learn that their fathers both died from lung cancer. Based on this shared painful experience, and their work side-by-side, the two men bond, particularly when they are forced to walk through a wall of fire on the job. But as Matteo grows closer to his new friend, his brigade grows more suspicious, calling into question Nico’s diary, his lengthy motorcycle trips around the countryside, his motivations for volunteering and his curiously strong command of the Italian language. To combat the fire on the mountain, Nico lights a back burn, saving his and Matteo’s life, but contributing to the deaths of the other firefighters. What was his motivation? As Nico waits in jail, accused of arson, Matteo struggles to figure out what he believes, while also confronting his survivor’s guilt. Throughout the narrative, Parras displays a solid, if a bit overblown, writing style, and the dynamic relationships between the men are genuinely emotional.
A tense, riveting rendering of the struggle between men and the nature they strive to protect.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2005
ISBN: 1-57233-445-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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